Riley Blake Fabric Challenge

The deadline for the Riley Blake Fabric Challenge is the end of July… so I finally cut into the fat eighth bundle last weekend. But I’ve been thinking about it for quite a while! I’ve been gathering Pin-spiration since May. I decided not to buy any additional fabric, so my project was pretty small and I was able to finish it in a weekend.

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The challenge runs from March until July 2015.

I knew I wanted to focus on the birds in the fabric, and at first I was looking at paper pieced feathers and birds, but then I started to think about nests. I remembered this tutorial for a Bloomin’ QAYG panel from Hey Let’s Make Stuff, and it seemed like a good time to try it. I’ve done a lot of QAYG lately, but I’ve never tried it in an improv fashion and I’ve never made a pillow before… so that was my “something new”!

The tutorial is great for step-by-step instructions, and it’s pretty easy to get the hang of it quickly. I did a couple things differently – I didn’t use a backing fabric since the back of the batting would be hidden inside the pillow, and I didn’t press each fabric as it was added. I set aside one fat eighth for the backing, and kept adding to the panel until it was big enough. Then I trimmed off the excess, sewed right sides together, and turned the pillow right side out. I had a nearly-full bag of stuffing left over from another project, so I used all 12 oz. and it filled out the pillow pretty nicely.

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